So I may or may not be currently hyperfixating on Cats after finally seeing it live (fantastic production btw the 2022-23 cast is so good) and looking back on the Boschian nightmare that is the 2019 film, you know what the worst thing they did was? And I mean the WORST thing. It wasn’t turning sweet & matronly Jennyanydots into Rebel Wilson scissoring the camera. It wasn’t shoving poor Victoria into the role of protagonist in a musical that’s designed not to have a protagonist. It wasn’t the horrific MoCap suits (but I do still feel so bad for the VFX team that got thrown under the bus). It wasn’t even James Corden existing. I will go to my grave insisting that the movie’s greatest sin was, in fact, the straightwashing. Tom Hooper took my beautiful boys-
And hit them with the hetero ray. How fucking dare he. The movie’s understanding of Tugger is so goddamn surface level it makes my head spin. Their version of him is a flirt and nothing else, and that isn’t actually the case in the musical. Like, for all his strutting and, ahem, gyrating, that Rum Tum Tugger isn’t actually all that interested in the girl cats who fawn over him is made pretty clear in his big number. But who DOES he show an interest in, in just about every version of the stage show?
The movie adds insult to injury by still giving the “Rum Tum Tugger is a terrible bore” line to Mistoffelees, but then changing the context to make it no homo. Rather than Misto playfully teasing Tugger, he’s now acting jealous & trying to dissuade Victoria from taking an interest in Tugger. Because the film is so committed to convincing us that this guy is straight-
that they wrote up a romantic arc for him out of whole cloth WITH HIS SISTER GUYS THEY WERE SO AFRAID OF GAY CATS THEY PAIRED HIM OFF WITH HIS SISTER. I know the film versions of their characters aren’t related (probably because Hooper & co didn’t know they were canonically siblings because they didn’t do their homework because they didn’t care they just wanted that awards bait)- but still what the actual fuck? No gays allowed but you can kiss your sibling. Truly a movie for Alabamans.
